1. Grayson

I’m the groom in two weddings today. Well, technically, I’ll only be at one, but you get what I mean. One wedding is being held at one of the ritziest country clubs in North America, with over two thousand guests.

The other was an intimate ceremony for twenty of our closest friends in a cute little vineyard tucked away in the hills of Tuscany. I chose the latter, in case you were wondering.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. For you to understand how I got to this place in life, we’ll have to go way back. Back to a time before I became the vengeful dick, I am today. And no, I don’t care what anyone thinks of the things I have done, in case you were wondering.

When I was about four years old, I met my best friend. She was the daughter of my father’s boss. Lacey and I were thick as thieves all through kindergarten to middle school.

When we turned fourteen in high school, she decided that we should date each other. As a young guy who wasn’t too much in the know when it came to relationships, I saw no difference between that and what we were already doing, so why not? I mean, we spent practically every minute together, even during school hours.

Lacey’s father, of course, was loaded as well as mine, so there were lots of family vacations where both our families would get together and spend the summer at a beach house on a private island. Or sometimes, both kids would go somewhere with one set of parents; we were that kinda close.

From a young age, Dad taught me how to read the stock market in the New York Times, and I became fascinated with all things financial. By the time I was sixteen I was investing all the birthday and holiday money under my Dad’s name and had a pretty neat nest egg.

I have to admit that I was kind of a hot nerd, or at least that’s what the girls used to whisper about me in the hallways at school. That being said, sex was the last thing on my mind. Between AP classes, the swim team, and my stock trading, I had no time for much else.

At this time, Lacey and I were still dating, and we’d gone as far as kissing and some under the shirt stuff, but I’d learned enough from seeing it happen before my eyes not to want to go any further. I was terrified of getting her pregnant and derailing my life.

So, I came up with the idea of telling her that I wanted to wait until we were married. She seemed okay with that, and life went on as usual, that was until I received an anonymous text with photo evidence of my girlfriend cheating on me.

I think the most telling thing for me about the situation is that I had no response at all. I wasn’t hurt, angry, none of the things you would expect. That’s when I realized that I didn’t have those feelings for her, so whatever she did was really none of my concern.

I did confront her, though, and told her that since she obviously had someone she liked, there was no point in the two of us still dating. For one, it would look like I’m a sap for being cheated on right under my nose because the boy in the pictures with her was another close friend, someone we hung out with very often.

I assured her that I was not upset, and that there were no hard feelings, and we could go back to being friends. I thought that was the right approach, but apparently, it was the wrong thing to say to Lacey.

She became very irate at my unaffected attitude and screamed about how I never loved her. I assured her that I loved her as a friend and that, too, was the wrong thing to say.

She screamed some more and promised that I couldn’t break up with her no matter what I said. At the time, I thought she was crazy, but as I was to find out later, she knew what she was talking about.

When my parents heard about the breakup and the reason behind it, all they did was look at each other, but neither of them said it was okay, that we were young, and we’d find other people. Nothing, they just looked at each other and then away from me.

For the next few days, I was bombarded by Lacey. She’d gone full-on crazy, running me down at school to scream some more. When I told her I didn’t see what the big deal was since she already had someone else, she claimed she didn’t like our friend, and it was just the one time and all the other shit you’d expect to hear from a cheat.

I was more annoyed by her behavior than the actual cheating and just wanted to be left alone, which is what I told her a week after everything went down. She threatened self-harm, to which I told her I’d call the cops for a wellness check if she made that threat again.

She got her friends to call me before I blocked them all, including her. And then, her Dad showed up at the house and went into my Dad’s study to speak to him in private.

They were in there for a while, but what did I care? I was sure it was just some business meeting or something that had nothing to do with me. I had no idea of the shitstorm that was about to be unleashed on my head.

When he left, Mom went to talk to Dad, and then they, too, were in there for a while before they called me into the office. They sounded kind of panicked, but that didn’t register until later.

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Mr. Sinclair was just here, as you saw. He wanted to know what it would take for you to forgive his daughter and go back to the way things were.”

“I don’t understand why this is such a big deal. We broke up; people do it every day. It’s not like we were married or anything.”

I really was starting to lose my cool with the whole situation and told them as much before leaving the room, still thinking that the situation was not that serious.

I didn’t hate Lacey; she was still one of my best friends, and as far as I was concerned, this was what was best for everyone seeing as how I didn’t even care about seeing my supposed girlfriend going down on some other guy before riding his dick.

I fought them for the next month or so until they completely blindsided me one day. I came home from swimming practice, tired and wanting nothing but my bed and about eight hours of sleep before I felt human again.

I walked through the door and saw that my parents had packed my room up. All of my clothes had been thrown into suitcases, and my books and trophies were in boxes.

“What’s going on? Are we moving?”

“No, we’re not moving, but since you can’t do what’s best for this family, we don’t think you should benefit from our hard work.”

“What’re you talking about, Dad?”

“I’m talking about my job, my livelihood. The thing that helps me put food on the table and a roof over your head.”

I looked at my mother, but she had her usual blank expression on her face. “Mr. Sinclair has offered me a promotion with a hefty pay raise, life-changing money that could change all our lives. You can go to the best financial university in the country, the world, even, and all you have to do is get back together with Lacey.”

“If you still persist in saying no, then you can say goodbye to all this.” I stood there in shock and disbelief for as long as it took his words to make sense to my ears. I felt as if I’d fallen down the rabbit hole.

You can’t be serious. You’re selling me? Your son? She cheated on me; doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Look, she said she was sorry. Why do you always have to make things more complicated than they are? You’re both young; these things happen. And besides, Lacey says someone spiked her drink at that party, and she has no idea what was going on.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So that means she was assaulted. Did her parents call the police?” I already knew that was a load of crap because everyone who knew about the encounter swore that it was a planned date and that it was not the first time. Apparently, my so-called girlfriend gets around.

That night, I walked away from my parents, both disgusted and disappointed. But the longer I laid in my bed stewing, the angrier I became. But I had to think with my head and not my emotions. It was the first time that I was going to use that choice and it has stood me well throughout my life.

By the morning, I had part of a plan formed in my mind. I did a good job hiding my anger from my parents and played along with their new tale of the spiked drink. I did a good job of convincing them that I felt bad now that I knew the truth.

Of course, I would keep seeing her if it meant Dad would get that promotion and raise. Inside, I was seething as I felt forced to say these words. I’m no fool; at seventeen, I had a good deal of money from my stocks, but it was all under my Dad’s control.

I was on track for a full ride to my university of choice, but there were other expenses that wouldn’t be covered, and I wanted the full ride with all the extras, and my parents were going to do that. They had backed me into a corner, but I don’t think they realized that they had given me a weapon as well.

When I saw Lacey that day at school, she was all smiles and cocky confidence. The first thing she said to me was, ‘I told you.’ I think that’s the moment I started hating her. I’d seen a side to her in the last few months that I didn’t know existed.

For the next year, I became an even better boyfriend than I was before, but there was still no sex before marriage. It was easy to get away with that because I showed no interest in other girls while she carried on her sexcapades behind my back.

Even if I wanted to have a fling with someone else, she’d turned me off from the opposite sex for a while, which was a blessing in disguise because it kept me focused on what mattered most to me.

Before, I always wanted to be able to stand on my own two feet while still having my family behind me to cushion the fall if it came, but now I knew that I would never trust or rely on them for anything ever again, so I needed to be wise in all my pursuits.

When I got into college, that started another dispute because Lacey couldn’t get into my school. She’d applied to one of my choices, which I convinced her was my first choice, but everyone knew the school I’d chosen was the better choice for my future prospects.

I made a big show of wanting to join her Dad’s company after college and was even thinking of interning there during the summers to get the experience. This seemed to waylay their fears that I was trying to pull a runner, and even though Lacey kicked up a stink, for once, things went my way.

I even reminded her that the school she was going to was only two and a half hours away from my school, and we would still see each other often. I think the close proximity where she could keep an eye on me added to the realization that if we went to different schools, she could carry on with her life the way she had been, and I would be none the wiser is what got her to cave.

The summer before I left for college, I talked my Dad into signing over my account to me under the guise of wanting to play the market. He and Mom were so pleased with the results of my debasing myself that they went all out with expenses for my college dorm, the new car, and a hefty allowance as long as I kept up my grades.

I left their house with everything I needed to make a clean break sometime in the future while smiling in their faces and pretending to be their obedient lapdog. They saw the boy they had raised. I was the man they had made grow up too soon.

* * *

It wasmy third week on campus when I met her. She was in one of my business classes, and I heard her name called. She had the same last name as my Dad’s boss, Lacey’s Dad.

I didn’t approach her right away, but I scoped her out for a week before making my approach. “Hey, do you know Evan Sinclair?”

“Yes, he’s my dad.”

“Your dad?”

“Yes, why, do you know him?” I asked her some more questions to be sure we were talking about the same person and was blown away that not only was he the same guy, but she had spent every other weekend at his home for a while and even knew of me.

To say I was stumped is an understatement, but she wasn’t in the mood to answer my questions that first day, of which there were many, but promised to fill me in one day soon.

Lily Sinclair, if she’s telling the truth, is the complete opposite of her sister. Lacey is blonde and blue-eyed like her mother, while Lily has jet-black hair and what I call panther-green eyes, stunning and unusual. She also looked more like their father with her olive complexion.

I did some digging on my own and found out that she was telling the truth, but I still didn’t know the story behind her existence or why I was only now meeting her after knowing her Dad and stepmother for most of my life.

For the next few weeks, we’d run into each other on campus, but nothing more was said, and we’d just wave and go about our business, which was the only change in our relationship until one day, she sat next to me at the end of one of our classes and said, “You ready for that conversation?”